He had hoped it would not come to this. He had hoped another local diner operator would come in and take over Kel’s. But those talks fell apart yesterday, says Meredith, when all parties agreed “it would be too much of a hassle” to hand over the reins. Meredith says he has no option left other than to close now and “stop the bleeding.” He says too many things are conspiring against him at this point: the rising price of food, for starters, as well as a new landlord only willing to extend Kel’s a six-month lease. Better to close now, he says, than struggle through another few weeks or months.

At least Mayor Mike Rawlings will always have this picture of him at Kel's.

“I just got behind and was juggling too much,” he says. “You can’t really run that type of business. It finally caught up with me.”

The imminent demise of Kel’s has been a poorly kept secret. For weeks rumors have circulated that the beloved chicken-fried joint is about to close. The staff that’s still holding on — the cooks and waitresses who didn’t walk out the last Saturday in July — has been coming in to work every morning expecting to find it shuttered. Its most famous regular, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, was told just a few days ago that the cooks hadn’t been paid in a while.

Two weeks ago longtime manager Jimmie Harris told me Kel’s wasn’t closing. Then another batch of emails arrived this morning from concerned customers. When I called back this afternoon and asked for Harris, a waitress said he no longer worked there. He’s just one in a long line of farewells in recent weeks, she said.

“We keep hearing it’s going to close any day,” she said. “That’s what customers are saying, anyway.” She said Meredith hasn’t said anything to the staff.

Meredith acknowledges that he hadn’t told the staff what was going on because he was hoping someone else would take it over, and that everyone would get to keep their jobs. But now that that deal’s fallen through, he says, it’s time to admit the inevitable.

“I can’t keep it from happening,” he says. “It’s been a weird …” He pauses. “Last month has probably been the strangest month I’ve ever had in my life. It was the culmination of a lot of things happening. One thing after another would come up, and I was like., ‘Wait a minute, when is this storm gonna be over?’ Life in the big city. A lot of people in the neighborhood are gonna be sorry, and what they’re gonna put in there I don’t know.” Continue reading →

A Seattle ex-pat's two favorite Top Pot doughnuts: Blueberry cake and maple bar.

Those of us who make a beeline for Seattle’s Top Pot Doughnuts whenever we head back to the Emerald City now don’t have to go so far to satisfy those cravings: On Thursday, Top Pot opened in Dallas, on Hillcrest Road just north of Northwest Highway, where Elevation Burger used to be. It’s the chain’s first location outside Washington State.

For a Seattle ex-pat like me, this is kind of a big deal.

The new Dallas location is on Hillcrest Road, just north of Northwest Highway.

Before I joined the Morning News, I lived in Seattle, which doesn’t have nearly the doughnut-shop-per-capita ratio that Dallas does. Initially I lived in the city’s centrally located Capitol Hill neighborhood before buying a condo farther north — soon after Top Pot had opened its first location four blocks from where I had lived. In the months that passed I came to wonder if home ownership was really a better trade-off than living down the street from what would quickly become an obsession: A blur of blueberry cake doughnuts (still my favorite) and maple bars and the chocolate-frosting-topped chocolate cake doughnuts known as Double Troubles. Before long, though, the doughnut shop’s success prompted the opening of branches all around town, all echoing the original’s blond wood decor, natural light and library feel. (Eventually, Top Pot would become the official doughnut of the Seattle Seahawks’ stadium.)

The cafe's signature library-like interior.

That atmosphere is what you’ll find in Top Pot’s new Dallas location, along with a variety of doughnuts ready for take-out in signature red and blue boxes. What I’ve always personally appreciated about Top Pot is its simplicity, focused more on the mostly classic doughnuts themselves than on any gimmicky toppings, with the cake options substantial and well-textured, and the glazed and others airy and fluffy but, in Seinfeld-ian lingo, not prone to shrinkage. On my initial foray there with a friend, I happened to run into Morning News restaurant critic Leslie Brenner, who had rounded up a formidable selection of samples in addition to – as she noted – a cup of the cafe’s solid coffee.

Meanwhile, my pal Kevin and I had scored four doughnuts of our own. While you might not wake up craving these doughnuts, it’s worth mentioning that some do — including, notoriously, former Seahawks receiver Golden Tate. As for me — frankly, I’m not sure I’m not still dreaming. Pinch me.

At this very moment Roden’s in Southern California to visit with Huy Fong Foods’ head hot-sauce man David Tran, hoping to convince Tran to move to operations to North Texas — or, at the very least, to expand distribution operations here. It looks like a long shot: Huy Fong folks believe the dust-up with the Irwindale City Council over the chili fumes is likely to dissipate, and, besides, there’s just something about that SoCal soil needed to grow the peppers that make Sriracha so delicious and desirable to diners and poaching politicians alike.

Craig Underwood, who oversees Huy Fong’s pepper-growing operation, tells the Pasadena Star-News in today’s paper that moving to Texas isn’t as easy as, say, loading up a few Toyotas. “Moving or even expanding an operation like this is a huge challenge,” Underwood said. “It’s taken us years to find varieties and growing areas here.”

In other words: Don’t hold your breath (unless you live around the Sriracha factory?).

“We have great industrial sites with access to rail, an airport and Interstate 35, as well as a municipally owned electric utility providing 40 percent wind power, competitive costs and award-wining reliability,” says the council member. Roden’s not there alone, either: He’s taken Denton Director of Economic Development Aimee Bissett, Energy Services Development Officer Brian Daskam and the vice president of the Chamber of Commerce, Adam Gawarecki. If nothing else maybe they too can pick up some Sriracha underpants.

After 76 years, the Mecca may be dishing up its last chicken-fried steak.

Better make a run for that last cinnamon roll: Two years after leaving its decades-old Harry Hines location in Northwest Dallas, the Mecca restaurant — “waking up Dallas since 1938″ — is shutting its doors again.

Unlike last time, when it temporarily closed up shop to relocate to Skillman and Live Oak in Lakewood, the Mecca — as reported Thursday by culturemap Dallas, has no definite place to land, though owner Mike Sealy hopes to find a new location nearby. For now, though, you’ve got until 5 pm Sunday to enjoy one last stack of fluffy pancakes or a block of homey meatloaf.

Club Schmitz, which opened in 1946 near Bachman Lake, is set to close May 31.

Club Schmitz, a Dallas mainstay on Denton Drive for 68 years, is closing.

Co-owner Bob Schmitz said in an interview Thursday the beer and burgers joint will close up shop May 31. Club Schmitz also posted the news Tuesday on its Facebook page.

Schmitz said he and co-owner Larry Schmitz sold the property to the adjacent RaceTrac gas station.

Cousins Lawrence “Bigun” and Leonard Schmitz opened Club Schmitz in January 1946 after returning from World War II. Leonard’s son, Bob, and Bigun’s son, Larry, took over the business in the late 1970s.

Bob Schmitz, 60, said he was “torn” about closing Club Schmitz, but said now he and Larry, 64, will look to do something new. He said he doesn’t see a new Club Schmitz location happening at the moment.

There aren’t any big celebrations planned, Bob Schmitz said, as customers, many of whom are friends, will come in to pay their respects.

He’s reluctant to discuss what could happen come summertime when, for now, it’s just “a possibility.” The family, including Bob’s cousin and Bigun’s son Larry, owns the property, and if RaceTrac makes an offer that’s too good to refuse, well, sure that could be that. Because, in the words of L. Frank Baum, everything has to come to an end, sometime.

“Larry and I are both in our 60s, and we’ve been doing it for a long time,” says Bob. He says he has “mixed emotions” about this whole process; he says he and Larry “have to do what’s best” for themselves and their families. But it’s too early to talk about closings and goodbyes, he says; there are still burgers to serve and beers to pour and a proud legacy to preserve. The fact some folks in my neck of the great Northwest are so panicked about the mere possibility of the Schmitz’s demise speaks to a storied past that has carried into a still-vital present.

For now, says Schmitz, this is all you need to know: “We’re not closed — for now.”

Matter of fact, it opened at 9 this morning. Because it’s never too early for Club Schmitz. Every single one of its customers, many regulars, hopes it’s not too late.

Ulysses Galvan, left, has worked with Dude, Sweet Chocolate's Katherine Clapner for the better part of 15 years. (Courtesy photo/Katherine Clapner)

The culinary assistant whom Dallas chefs rallied around at a fundraiser on Sunday to help pay for a bone marrow transplant died Thursday of leukemia.

Ulysses Galvan, 34, battled leukemia for five years and was supposed to receive a bone marrow transplant in the near future. His 2-year-old son was set to be his donor. Galvan’s family and friends will announce funeral services very soon, said chocolatier Katherine Clapner of Dallas’ Dude, Sweet Chocolate.

She worked with Galvan for much of the last 15 years and only knew about the cancer after his condition worsened in the fall. She and several other star chefs in Dallas arranged a dinner fundraiser at Trinity Groves on Sunday. About 325 people helped raise $20,000.

“It just happened,” Clapner said. “And people have been calling wanting to help. Literally, all the chefs are like ‘what can we do?’ It’s a big testament to really how amazing he really is.”

Clapner said something to raise money for Galvan’s family is in the works. Survivors of Galvan include a wife and three young sons.

If you’re sitting on some boxes of Patterson Food Processors Beef Skirt Seasoned or Studio Movie Grill Beef Tenderloin Sliced or other meat products distributed by Fort Worth’s PFP Enterprises, be aware: Some of them are being recalled due to possible E. coli contamination.

That’s according to a bulletin issued this morning by the United States Department of Agriculture, which says the company is recalling a laundry list of recently packed product whose “beef trim tested presumptive positive for multiple non-O157 Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) strains through the company’s testing program,” which sounds as terrible as it probably feels. The feds say the Fort Worth meat-packer, which distributes for various local companies, “inadvertently did not carry the test out to confirmation, and not all affected product was held.”

And now it’s in Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma and Puerto Rico.

“We are investigating the matter [and] have pro-actively removed ALL Patterson Meat products off our shelves and our menu until further notice,” says Lynne McQuaker of the Dallas-based Movie Studio Grill.” She also wants us to know that “the product is NOT Studio Movie Grill Beef Tenderloin, but Patterson Meat Beef tenderloin.”

Duly noted.

The complete list of at-risk product is here and below, and dates from December 13 through January 11. And so far, so good: The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and the company have received “no reports of illnesses associated with consumption of these products,” says the USDA.

The restaurant announced this morning that it will be relocating to new quarters in Deep Ellum.

Here’s what Diane Fourton, who owns the restaurant with her husband Justin, had to say in an email to friends:

Justin and I are pleased to announce our decision to stay in Dallas and relocate Pecan Lodge to Deep Ellum.

It has been a privilege to be part of the community of independent growers, farmers and small business owners at the Dallas Farmers Market, and we will always treasure our experience there. However, after careful thought and consideration, we believe a separate location of our own will best meet the needs of our customers and our growing business. We are very grateful to the Dallas Farmers Market for providing a foundation upon which a tiny, independently-owned business could grow and thrive for more than 3 ½ years.

Deep Ellum offers a unique opportunity for us to accomplish our goals for Pecan Lodge while also being part of an exciting community revitalization project, lead by Scott Rohrman of 42 Real Estate. We believe in Scott’s vision for Deep Ellum and look forward to helping restore this amazing, historic neighborhood in Dallas.

Construction on the new location will begin soon. Until construction is complete, Pecan Lodge will remain open at the Dallas Farmers Market, operating under normal business hours (ok, normal for us), Wed-Sun, 11:00 am – 3:00 pm or until we sell out.

We will continue to share more specific details about our progress and transition plans as they become available.

Warm Regards,
Diane & Justin Fourton

Since opening in the spring of 2010 in Shed 2 at the Farmers Market, Pecan Lodge has made its reputation as one of the best — and most popular — barbecue restaurants in Texas. On most days, the line of eager customers starts forming at least an hour before the doors open. That line never goes down, until Justin has to go out with his “Slim Pickins” sign and break the bad news that he’s once again running out of smoked brisket, ribs, and sausage.

(Full disclosure: The Texas BBQ Posse, of which I am a proud member, is exceedingly fond of the food at Pecan Lodge, and of Justin and Diane, two terrific people. The posse is an exclusive gastronomical society: The only people admitted are those who ask if they can tag along when we drive around the state in search of smoked perfection. In an op-ed column published this month, I even went so far as to suggest to our august Editorial Board that Justin and Diane deserve consideration as 2013′s Texan(s) of the Year.)

Despite the Fourtons’ soaring success, Pecan Lodge’s days at the Farmers Market have been numbered since the city of Dallas sold most of the money-losing market to private developers, who have visions of transforming the moribund property into an upscale, mixed-use mecca of shops, restaurants, entertainment venues, apartments, offices, athletic fields, a community garden, a culinary studio, and more.

Under the best of circumstances, Pecan Lodge was going to have to relocate temporarily to another spot at the Farmers Market — and large, wood-burning smokers aren’t that easy to pick up and put down — while Shed 2 got redeveloped.

At worst, a partnership between the new landlords and their best-known tenant was never in the cards. Negotiations between the two sides dragged on, and everyone said the right things publicly, but I never thought that either party had its heart set on striking a deal. The developers seemed unconvinced that a smoky barbecue joint was a good fit with the specialty boutiques and high-end eateries that exist, for now, only in four-color brochures and PowerPoints. They also seemed unimpressed that of late, Pecan Lodge has been about the only thing at the Farmers Market worth getting in one’s car and driving to. On most days, the rest of the market is about as vibrant and inviting as a dead grackle.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings visited with the Fourtons in August and, over his lunch, delivered a message that may have helped pave the way for the move to Deep Ellum.

The mayor said he absolutely wanted the couple to stay in Dallas — but that he had no dog in the fight over whether that meant staying at the Farmers Market.

“Let me say, as the mayor of Dallas and a big fan of Pecan Lodge, we’re not going to lose them to a different city,” Rawlings told my colleague, Robert Wilonsky.

“It’s paramount that we as citizens and the city put our arms around a Dallas resident owning a Dallas restaurant for Dallas citizens and keep them in Dallas.”